Should I Call This an Article or a

Blog Post? by: Kyle Jones Sometimes ­ maybe even often times ­ I have a habit of over­thinking things. This is especially true when editing my own writing. Did I say this right or have I said that incorrectly. Do I place a comma here or do I place a comma there? And the questions go on­and­on­and­on­etc., etc., etc. One recently recurring question has been what I should call what you’re reading right now. Is this an article? Is it a post? Not sure? Should I call this an article or a post? Still not sure? Maybe it is a non­issue, or maybe it is something worth exploring. For the purpose of this post and/or article, I choose the assumption that it IS worth a bit of exploring or investigation.

What is an Article? Let’s take a moment and define the word article. The Google Dictionary defines the word as:

a piece of writing included with others in a newspaper, magazine, or other publication. So, based on the example definition above, a blog post would fall into the “or other publication” category; therefore, would it not be acceptable to consider this work an article?

What is a Post? A search of post via several online dictionaries revealed definitions in the traditional sense of the word. Those included information about physical locations, columns made of wood, and several others. A search on “blog post” took me to Wikipedia.org and I found the following:

A blog (a truncation of the expression weblog) is a discussion or informational site published on the World Wide Web and consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically displayed in reverse chronological order (the most recent post appears first).

These discrete entries are synonymous with posts.

The Question Isn’t New Next, I Googled the following as part of my research: should i call it a blog post or an article? The first entry, dated February 24, 2010, linked todailywritingtips.com. The work, written by Eric Cummings, began by saying:

My co­blogger and I have come across an interesting usage problem. We don’t know what to call what we write.

He describes my own question and did just as I did above ­ defined the words. (This is evidence, my friends, that there is (practically) no original idea.) Eric goes on to say that he still isn’t sure how to name work; however, he echoes my own thought as to how one might choose to label them.

Categorize Your Work One option would be the following. I choose to use the word article as the professional term and, on the opposite, post as a personal. For example, I wrote an article about performance on PerformanceICreate.com, but I wrote a post about Doctor Who on my own blog.

Article ­ Leans toward professional or researched content Post ­ Personal or non­researched content

Or, could it be that it doesn’t really matter either way?

Your Opinion What do you think? Does it matter if you call work posted on a blog an article or a post? Are we splitting the proverbial hairs? Let me know in the comments.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog http://www.dailywritingtips.com/post­entry­or­article/ About Author: I am a longtime fan of Doctor Who, comic books, & gadgets. I am a Corporate Recruiter for C Spire, Co­Social Media Director for Mississippi SHRM, and blogger. I write for performanceicreate.com and am a co­host of Doctor Who: Podshock.